Requiem for a Reality Show
"Requiem for a Reality Show" is the fourth episode of Drawn Together. Synopsis Spanky bullies Wooldoor and looks to Clara for help. Toot is upset at how fat she gets and tries to lose weight rapidly. Captain Hero loses his dignity and begs for Foxxy to give him food. Storyline The house is divided into two teams who then compete in a contest to see who will be given control of the house's food supply for the rest of the week. The challenges seem relatively unequal: Team A (Hero, Clara, Spanky, and Wooldoor) must find a low-carb cure for polio while Team B (Foxxy, Toot, Xandir, and Ling-Ling) must place an egg in a bucket. (Foxxy explains that her team always gets the easier challenges because she blows the producers every week.) The contest is extremely close, but eventually, Team B wins, and Toot celebrates by eating all the food she can get her hands on, her overindulgence making her morbidly obese. Upon seeing Foxxy's slender frame, she becomes ashamed at how much weight she had gained. Xandir tries to fix it by teaching Toot how to purge in order to lose weight rapidly—with rather disgusting and harmful results. Xandir, Foxxy, and Ling-Ling convince Toot to try an alternative, but Toot keeps on purging until she becomes no thinner than a stick. After she's had a talk about her eating disorders, she decides that she's learned a lesson. Meanwhile, the losing team—Clara, Spanky, Wooldoor and Hero - suffer from starvation. Captain Hero gets food from Foxxy by allowing her to humiliate him for it, eventually causing the two of them to enter into a hardcore BDSM relationship, consisting mainly of Foxxy physically punishing Hero in all sorts of painful and, for Hero, erotic ways. Eventually however, the spark goes out of their relationship, and the two break up. While starving, Spanky literally steals Wooldoor's stomach and throws it into a cactus. Clara retrieves it for Wooldoor, and then tells him through song to confront Spanky. However, Spanky gets food by forcing Wooldoor to get Clara to sing, so that he can trap and kill all of the woodland animals that inexplicably show up whenever she sings as in a classic Disney movie. The three enjoy a wonderful feast, but Clara becomes suspicious of where the meat came from, and Wooldoor tearfully reveals what had happened, much to Clara's horror. Wooldoor is distraught and begs for her forgiveness, but Clara, anguished over the deaths of her woodland friends and Wooldoor's role in them, refuses. Wooldoor gathers up the animal carcasses to give them a proper burial, but discovers that one of the animals, a chipmunk, is still alive. Spanky immediately confronts Wooldoor and demands that he hand over the chipmunk. However, Wooldoor sings Clara's bully song to inspire himself, and he finally finds the courage to stand up to Spanky. He brushes Spanky off and takes the chipmunk to Clara, who is so happy that she forgives him. After Wooldoor leaves, Clara asks the chipmunk to forgive her for unwittingly leading all the other animals to their deaths. He agrees and promises Clara he won't tell anyone else about it; she then responds, "I wish I could believe you," and casually kills him. That evening, Clara, Spanky, and Wooldoor have another delicious meal. The two ask where the meat came from, and Clara makes up a lie about the "meat blimp crashing". The episode ends with the three laughing hysterically. Musical number: "The Bully Song", sung by Clara as she tries to convince Wooldoor to stand up to Spanky. Also, "Let Me Love You Tonight" by Pure Prairie League plays during a montage of Captain Hero's BDSM relationship with Foxxy. Characters Major Roles *Wooldoor Sockbat *Spanky Ham *Princess Clara *Foxxy Love *Captain Hero *Toot Braunstein Minor Roles *Xandir *Ling-Ling Lyrics to "The Bully Song" :Clara: singing Bullies are people who hate themselves. Abused at age six, or molested at twelve. So they pick on others, isn't it odd? Because their real quarrel is with God. Who's afraid of a bully? :Wooldoor: Me. :Clara: Not me. :Clara: singing For there are much better things to be frightened of. Like people of color and gay homo love. So stand up to the bullies, stand tall and true! Just like Jesus stood up to those misguided Jews. :Wooldoor: Wow, you're right! :Clara: Now who's afraid of a bully? :Wooldoor: Not me. No, not me. :Clara: When you stand up to that bully -- :Wooldoor: He'll flee! :Clara: Oh yes, he'll flee like the pathetic, insecure, cowardly loser he be. Wooldoor and Spanky's version :Wooldoor: singing Bullies are people who hate themselves. Abused at age six, or molested at twelve. :Spanky Ham: Who told you? :Wooldoor: Who's afraid of a bully? Not me, not me! :Spanky Ham: singing He's not the only one who can sing from his heart. I have feelings inside and -- singing Ah, fuck this shit! Memorable Quotes *'Captain Hero:' Our team had to invent a low carb cure for Polio before the other team could put and egg in a bucket. *'Foxxy Love:' (In Confessional) It seems that every week, my team gets the easier challenge. It also seems every week, I blow the producers. ---- *'Wooldoor:' Spanky was right. I blew it. And now, I was dead! Dead! Why couldn’t I get rid of my polio faster? I suck! (walks away in crutches, struggling to move due to the pain) (step) Ow, (step) ow, (step) ow, (step) ow, (step) ow, (step) ow, (step) ow, (step) ow— (falls down, eventually gets himself back up and moves again) (step) Ow, (step) ow, (step) ow, (step) ow… ---- *'Wooldoor:' (Crying) I'm sorry I'm so sorry! (Normal) Are you as turned on as I am right now? (Referencing to sticking his nose in her vaginal area) *'Clara:' (Crying and enraged) What!? What the hell did you just say?! *'Wooldoor:'' (Crying) I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It's just that when I'm depressed, I say the weirdest things sometimes! (Normal) Do you have five dollars I could borrow? *'Clara:' (Crying) Go! Just Go! I never want to see you again now just go... to my room. My purse is on my dresser there. There should be five, maybe ten dollars you can borrow! ---- *''(Foxxy is walking Charlie Brown on a leash, wearing a S&M mask)'' *'Foxxy:' Come on, blockhead, Foxxy's gon' give you some good grief! Notes and inside references * This is the first episode of the series where Wooldoor and Captain Hero are given major roles - they had only played minor roles in episodes prior to this. * This is the final episode to feature Spanky in his 'Puck' personality originally envisioned for him. After this episode, Spanky's personality would be revised, portraying him more as a occasionally misguided voice of reason rather than a full-on unsympathetic jerk. * While Wooldoor is rushing around, Ling-Ling is seen curled up asleep in Clara's lap like a cat. After Wooldoor disturbs them, Ling-Ling's tail changes from its usual exclamation point shape to the punctuation symbols used to indicate profanity in comic strips. * Spanky's line, "For the love of Allah—who's great and merciful—haven't you gotten rid of that polio yet?", with its use of Allah in the place of God, and the subsequent epithet, indicates that he is a member of the Muslim faith. This is further confirmed and reinforced in Episode 6, "Dirty Pranking No. 2", where Spanky announces that he had inconveniently converted a month before the September 11 2001 attacks. The ironic fact that pork is forbidden by Islamic dietary law, or Halaal, is not mentioned. * When he recaps the plot following the food competition, Spanky says, "Team A won the grocery competition and more food than they knew what to do with." However, it was actually Team B (Foxxy, Toot, Xandir, and Ling-Ling) who won. * Clara twists the chipmunk's neck to prevent it from blurting out that she's indirectly responsible for the death of its fellows. In the first episode of the second season, there is a flashback of that scene, but in an altered version showing a close-up of their faces, with Clara holding the chipmunk at the height of her face. In the original version, she held the rodent level with her stomach. * In the NBC promo parody, Toot introduces herself as "Toot Brownstein", using the Americanized pronunciation of her last name of Braunstein. * In the broadcast version, Toot states, "In tonight's episode, we poorly dealt with eating disorders." The word "poorly" is not spoken in the DVD version. Animated cameos * When the contest begins, a creature in a UFO with a fishing pole and a traffic light attached aids them. Holding the pole is Lakitu from the Super Mario Kart video game. * After Foxxy and Captain Hero break up, Foxxy's new slave is Charlie Brown, while Captain Hero's mistress is Natasha Fatale from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Foxxy says to Charlie Brown, "Come on, blockhead, Foxxy's gon' give you some good grief!" "Blockhead" was the name the other kids used to tease Charlie Brown in the Peanuts comic strip, while "Good grief!" was Charlie Brown's catchphrase in the strip. * When Xandir suggests that Toots stick her fingers down her throat to lose weight, she states her fingers have been inside Pepe Le Pew, but not "the" Pepe Le Pew. Cultural references * The opening scene where Spanky is chasing Wooldoor, and the pair stop in a freeze-frame with parenthesized mock-Latin names below their own real ones, is a direct parody of most Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. Spanky is "Pornus Interruptus." Wooldoor is "Ritalinus Shouldatakus." Ritalin is a drug used to treat ADHD, which Wooldoor clearly has. * Near the start of the episode, Spanky mishears something that is said and replies "Bukkake?", referring to a group sex practice consisting of facial ejaculations that originates in Japan. Bukkake would be referenced again in Season Two's "Captain Hero's Marriage Pact" when Ling-Ling watches a show called Bukkake Chef and complains that the secret ingredient is always the same. * This episode's food competition is a direct parody of those seen in Big Brother. The main difference is that on Big Brother, the losing team does not starve, but must subsist on staple food for a week. * Toot's refrigerator scene ends in a shot of her lifting the refrigerator above her head and dumping the contents into her mouth. The point of view is from inside the refrigerator, and shows her mouth expanding into a circular chasm with rings of teeth which continue down into her throat, accompanied by a shrieking, animal-like roar. This is a reference to the sandworms of the Dune saga; it is also a reference to Return of the Jedi, as Toot's multi-toothed gullet resembles a StarWars creature called Sarlacc. * The sequence where Clara sings while a bunch of woodland creatures appear out of nowhere to join her parodies the improbable musical sequences found in many Disney animated films, particularly those where the heroines are accompanied by birds and other animals as they sing (e.g. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty). * When Clara first summons the animals with her singing, a gerbil climbs out of Xandir's anus. This is a reference to the practice of gerbilling, in which small animals—usually gerbils—are inserted into the rectum for sexual pleasure. Though it is widely talked about, there is no evidence that the practice actually exists. A popular (but untrue) urban legend asserts that actor Richard Gere once had to visit a hospital emergency room to have a gerbil removed.http://www.snopes.com/risque/homosex/gerbil.htm * After Clara sings her song, Spanky sees a bird perched on a cactus, which appears to him as a roasted chicken. This is a commonly used animation technique, particularly associated with Looney Tunes. * Spanky's comment "We'll eat like dingoes in a maternity ward!" is a reference to a 1980 incident that occurred in Australia in which Lindy Chamberlain was wrongfully accused of murdering her infant daughter, Azaria; she was exonerated when it was discovered the child was in fact killed and eaten by a dingo. The incident was immortalized in the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark, starring Meryl Streep. * When one of Spanky's traps catches a rabbit, a machine comes out which shaves and applies makeup to it before finally decapitating the animal. This is a reference to the extremely controversial practice of testing cosmetics on animals. * The coming alive of the pieces of meat resembles the part in Homer's Odyssey where Odysseus's men have slaughtered the sun god's cattle on Trinakia, the Island of the Sun, and the meat and hides suddenly scream out their pain to the heavens. * When Foxxy teases Captain Hero with the sandwich, several sounds and matching panels ("SNAP!", "BREAK!!!", "STARVE!!", and "SHAME!!") pop in. This is a reference to the 1960's Batman TV series, starring Adam West in the titular role. The program's fight scenes were always accompanied by cartoonish sound effects and title cards displaying words like "pow" and "bam" (which was done to pay tribute to the heroes' comic book origins). * As Wooldoor collects the leftover meat for a proper burial, a surviving chipmunk begs, "Don't bury me... I'm not dead!" This was the tagline featured in the marketing campaign for the film The Serpent and the Rainbow, depicting a zombie tearing out of a casket. In the movie, Bill Pullman's character utters the line when he collapses on the street, due to a drug that will induce a deathlike state and cause him to be buried alive. * Xandir uses ACME liposuction on Toot. ACME is the ubiquitous brand name featured in Looney Tunes cartoons in place of actual brands; it turned up most often in the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts. It has since been used in several other cartoons and television shows as a generic brand. (They also made the gay test that Xandir took in the previous episode, "Gay Bash".) * The scene where Captain Hero sits in the shower, crying in shame, is a parody of The Crying Game. This shot would later be used in "Little Orphan Hero". * Toot says, "Pass me the Han Solo," and then eats what appears to be Han Solo frozen in carbonite at the end of The Empire Strikes Back and beginning of Return of the Jedi, scooping it up like ice cream. Due to her constant eating, Toot resembles Jabba the Hutt in this scene, complete with Xandir as Slave Princess Leia and Ling-Ling as Salacious Crumb. * Captain Hero quotes the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem "Tales of a Wayside Inn" while lamenting the breakup of his and Foxxy's relationship ("two ships passing in the night"). There is a particular irony here, as the part of the poem Captain Hero quotes laments a relationship with a lack of communication; in fact, Captain Hero and Foxxy's relationship had no communication, as it was based purely around bondage. * When Clara yells at Wooldoor for his role in the slaughter of her woodland friends, at one point, he grabs her legs to plead with her and suddenly blurts out, "Are you as turned on as I am?". This is a reference to the Cheers episode "Showdown", in which Sam and Diane are in the middle of a heated argument when Sam suddenly says, "Are you as turned on as I am?" to which Diane replies, "More!" The two then proceed to kiss passionately. * After Toot learns her lesson about bulimia nervosa, she turns to the camera and delivers the moral, whereupon the image freezes while a musical cue plays and the words "What You Already Know" come up on the screen. This is a parody of NBC's "The More You Know" public service announcements. They would be parodied again in several future episodes, including the next episode, "The Other Cousin." * The title of this episode comes from Requiem for a Dream, a novel, and later a film, depicting the varying effects that drug addiction has on the lives of a group of people. This episode parodies the story, replacing drugs with food. Gallery Ritalinus Shouldtakus.png|Wooldoor is excitedly running around like an idiot. Spanky killing Wooldoor.png|Spanky is annoyed by Wooldoor's frenzied behavior so he strangles him, making his head inflate and eventually explode. Everyone is confused about this.png|Wooldoor wasn't trying to hurt anyone, he was simply trying to announce that the producers had given them all a food challenge. The teams have been created.png|The house is split into two teams. Wooldoor gets Polio.png|Team A has to find a cure for polio Trying to put an egg in a bucket.png|While Team B has to put an egg in a bucket. Wooldoor tries to get rid of his polio.png|Spanky lashes out at Wooldoor for not being able to get rid of his polio. Team B still putting an egg in a bucket.png|While Team B still struggles to put an egg in a bucket. Team B Wins.png|But eventually, Team B wins. Foxxy, Ling-Ling, and Xandir enjoying their chum.png|And so the members of Team B enjoy having an unlimited supply of food. The rest of them starve.png|While the rest of them have to starve. Spanky abusing Wooldoor.png|Spanky blames Wooldoor for their loss and attacks him. Foxxy taunting Hero.png|Meanwhile, Foxxy taunts the starving Captain Hero with her food. Captain Hero loses his dignity.png|Foxxy haggles with Captain Hero but he denies it, trying to keep his dignity. Toot engorges on a bunch of food.png|Toot engorges on a bunch of food. Clara sees how Wooldoor is sad.png|Clara sees how Wooldoor is being bullied. Clara sings to Wooldoor.png|And so she explains to him how to deal with bullies by singing a song ... Clara's homophobia.png|A very bigoted song. Spanky is evil.png|But Spanky is aware of this and he's only motivated to do more evil. Spanky sees food.png|And he sees Clara's woodland critters as some delicious food. Captain Hero gives in.png|Captain Hero finally gives in and asks Foxxy to give him food. However, that offer has expired. Foxxy eating a cookie.png|But there is one thing he can do. Captain Hero acting stupid.png|And that is to put on a showgirl act for Foxxy. Captain Hero crying in the shower.png|And so Hero gets his cookies, but also shows great, great shame. Toot has gone a bit insane with eating too much food.png|Toot has become really fat because of all this food. Toot sees how hot Foxxy is.png|Until she sees how hot and skinny Foxxy is. Toot becomes depressed.png|And she becomes depressed. Spanky bullies Wooldoor.png|Spanky threatens Wooldoor to make Clara sing her song again and Wooldoor is still too afraid to stand up to him. Wooldoor gets Clara to sing her song again.png|And so Wooldoor convinces Clara to sing her song again to help him with his bullying problems. Clara sings her song again.png|And so she sings her song again. Spanky kills some anaimals.png|Meanwhile, Spanky kills her animals for food. Captain Hero once again returms to Foxxy.png|Captain Hero comes back to Foxxy again. Foxxy falls in love with Hero.png|But for some reason, Foxxy becomes aroused by torturing Hero. Foxxy and Hero living out some very obscure sexual fantasies.png|And so Foxxy tortures Hero with sex and they both fall in love. Xandir making toot less fat.png|Xandir tries to suck Toot's fat out with a vacuum, but it's no use. Xandir sword swallowing.png|And so Xandir teaches her how to purge. Toot chokes herself up Ling-Ling.png|And Toot starts regurgitating. Clara, Wooldor, and Soanky eating.png|Clara, Wooldoor, and Spanky eat the dead woodland animals. Clara comes to a realization.png|But Clara starts raising suspicion when she finds out her woodland friends are missing. Clara realizes all her friends are dead.png|Until she finally realizes that all her friends are dead. Clara is angry at Wooldoor.png|Later, Clara blames Wooldoor for all of this. Clara and Wooldoor hate each other.png|And so they get into a huge fight and break up, running away, crying. Foxxy and Hero get bored of sex.png|Foxxy and Hero also break up because they're getting bored of kinky sex. Xandir and Foxxy talk about the breakup.png|Foxxy talks about the breakup with Xandir while playing pool and she seems pretty okay with it. Toot is skinny.png|Toot comes in, lithe from continued purging. Vomit all over the house.png|But her purging is out of control, with vomit all over the house. Xandir vomit confessional.png|Xandir says that he really needs to stop Toot's gagging problems as the confessional overflows with her vomit. Toot has become really skinny.png|After regurgitating so much, Toot has become a stick figure. Toot's team has a talk with her about her eating disorder.png|Toot's team have a talk with her about her eating disorder. Toot's puplic services annoucement.png|and so Toot has learned a "moral" from all this. One of Clara's woodland friends is still alive.png|Meanwhile, Wooldoor finds one of Clara's woodland friends to still be alive But Spanky finds out about this.png|but then he runs into trouble with Spanky again Wooldoor stands up to Spanky.png|but Wooldoor remembers what Clara had told him and he stands up to him, singing the bully song. Foxxy and Hero meet up again.png|Foxxy and Captain Hero then awkwardly meet up again sometime later. It wasn't all bad.png|They don't love each other anymore, but they reminisce on the good times that they shared. Wooldoor and Clara are forgiven.png|Clara forgives Wooldoor after he saves her friend and tells her what he did to Spanky. But the chipmunk might still be of evil.png|The chipmunk, however, can't be trusted to keep it all a secret And they all end up eating him in the end.png|and so, Clara ends up murdering him and they all happily eat him for dinner in the end. Streaming It can be viewed at the official Drawn Together website here. Category:Episodes Category:Clara Episodes Category:Spanky Episodes Category:Wooldoor Episodes Category:Toot Episodes Category:Captain Hero Episodes Category:Foxxy Episodes Category:Season One Episodes